NUCLEAR DETERRENCE. SSBN Le Terrible (SNLE in French), is France's fourth and last nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine of the Le Triomphant class. It is the first in its class to be equipped with the M51 weapon deterrent system. The submarine houses 16 type M51 missiles. Each missile is equipped with a warhead carrying several nuclear bombs . The destructive power of the ensemble of bombs housed in the submarine equals 500 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the missiles can reach within 50 meters of targets placed at intercontinental distances, exact figures withheld by the French Navy.

Jean Gaumy, as a loyal and respected observer of the Navy, was the sole witness of the completion and testing of the submarine Le Terrible. Over the course of a few days he participated in and documented the first mission of the vessel during its departure from Brest in March 2011. Jean Gaumy has respected the protection of all top secret classified information. Some details of certain photographs (see captions) have been deliberately erased, processed and/or blurred for the protection of top secret information.

Jean Gaumy had previously accompanied a top secret mission in 2006, as a filmmaker to work on his film Submarine aboard a nuclear attack submarine during a series of dives in the Arctic that lasted four months. He was officially nominated Peintre de la Marine FranÃ§aise (Painter of the French Navy) in 2008.With regard to nuclear power, it was a few years ago that Jean Gaumy began an in depth exploration of the contaminated territories of Chernobyl in Ukraine. He will soon photograph those of Fukishima in Japan.